Forty sentences from 130 years of women writing to each other in Seattle parlors. Every one real. Every one said or written by a woman, to a room of women, between 1894 and today. Click any quote for the whole paper.
We are all different women because we have known them.
One of the choicest treasures of our club life is this sweet spirit — of sisterliness (if I may be permitted that term), which is constantly growing dearer with the vicissitudes of the passing days and years.
I can see each dear one, just how she was dressed, where she sat, how she looked, and what she said.
Have any of you heard of her?
I still love Seattle — since it left me, because I never really left it. My fondest wish is that I could be in Seattle on a meeting day and so attend one more meeting. Oh, well… one can dream.
And that is how old she was when she died.
But what about me?
I would like to think I am more like my Mom as she was at first.
I felt as if I had stopped living and was simply passing time until I died. I find myself at the age of 52, trying to figure out what is important to me.
I wish I could have respected her more — loved her more.
I miss him to this day.
Belle M. Stoughtenborough, May I. Rasor, Anna M. Sheafe built their lives into the Queen Anne Fortnightly Club in a way that cannot be taken from us.
The stars were there to touch and the air was like diamonds, the snow would crunch under my fingers, and I was perhaps able to enjoy it for two or three minutes before the fierceness of the winter became too uncomfortable.
The snow was so hard and crisp one could hear the crunch a block away.
I wore pink. I was scared pink. After that first time it was always easy to speak before this group. After all, we were all friends.
After all, we were all friends.
The die is cast. I now must think — must write — must study. Too late to turn back. I've joined Fortnightly.
The stark white, hard-benched New England church I attended offered no solace.
Simple living and High thinking.
Wait a minute until I sharpen my pencil. It won't write good.
Born September 20th, 1894. Weight: 12 members with comely faces and good healthy brains.
Grandfather took down the big bellows from the chimney jamb and from its lungs blew life into the great pile of fragrant wood… round beech logs, split cedar, wild cherry, and bark filled the huge space between the back and fore-logs.
In spite of sugar shortages, colorful cakes and ices were served.
Here, the cars would turn with ever so much rasping and groaning to climb to the top of the then very steep hill.
Mrs. Knox — a very fountain of wit and humor. Pink cheeks, white hair, and she always wore lavender.
A fish net was spread over the wrecked ceiling and artistically draped at the corners and filled with ferns and vines, giving such an air of elegance to the room as could never have been had in the ordinary treatment.
Ice creams shaped like baskets of fruit.
To an outsider, it would be hard to describe just what it is that pervades the Fortnightly gatherings, making them an event to each one, but that something is always present.
We weren't that kind of club.
Even husbands who had reported unfavorably on Club parties in general seemed to unbend completely.
(Here comes the bomb!) I left home in April of last year and moved into an apartment on my own.
Someone said it sounded better than it really was.
Dad tripped on a step in the house, went to the hospital the next day with a broken hip and from there to Alcohol Rehabilitation. His last nine years were sober ones.
Adelaide Pollock is lost to history, both because she was female and because she was an educator… I think it is fitting that we honor her memory by hearing her story.
A golden offering of love from Fortnightly for 50 years of service.
It is not difficult for Fortnightly members to understand the value of belonging. What we get for belonging is the possibility of friendship, camaraderie, education, good food shared with friends. Those intangibles don't come from Amazon Prime.
I feel that there was a much closer cultural relationship to my childhood and that of a youngster brought up in 1800 than between those of 60 years ago and today.
I always knew when I grew up I would leave home, but I never thought that home would leave me.
Swim out, uncertain, swim on.
It was one of the greatest things in my life to have her come live with us. I loved her so much.
When Helen died I saw my dad cry — and it broke my heart — But she is with me always, and I still wear Shalimar!